Use ps or top to view processes, then manage them by sending signals with kill or changing priority with renice. ps takes a snapshot, while top and htop show a live view sorted by CPU or memory. ps aux and ps -ef list every process with its owner, process ID and command, and pstree shows which process started which. To get a process ID from a name, use pgrep or pidof.
# View processes
ps aux # All processes with details
ps -ef # Full format listing
ps -u username # Processes for specific user
pstree # Process tree view
# Real-time process monitoring
top # Interactive process viewer
htop # Enhanced version of top
atop # Advanced system monitor
# Process information
jobs # Current shell jobs
pgrep process_name # Find process IDs by name
pidof process_name # Get PID of running process
The state column in ps aux and top shows what each process is doing:
R: running, or ready to runS: sleeping while it waits for an eventD: uninterruptible sleep, usually waiting for disk I/OZ: zombie, finished, but its parent has not reaped it yetT: stopped
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